


The Naming of Things

by Argyle



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-04
Updated: 2008-06-04
Packaged: 2017-10-29 05:12:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/316189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't the worst arrangement in the history of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Naming of Things

It went like this: nigh-on a dozen rounds between them, they stumbled out of the Arms. And inevitably someone – usually Gene, though tonight it must have been Sam – was all arms. All sinew and elbow and swollen, grazed knuckles, and all a lark until a fist broke apart before it hit home and cool fingers swept over hot skin. Under the shirt. Under the vest. Like it was the only thing that mattered.

Which was true for the brief minutes they spent huddled in the alleyway. But then teeth mattered, and tongues, and the pressure of Gene's hand on Sam's groin. Getting somewhere else mattered. Getting to bed didn't.

They were in Gene's kitchen, where the sink brimmed with last Sunday's dishes; on the sofa, or scarcely through the front door. Clothes fell to the floor in errant heaps, and it was all Sam could do to pull the curtains tight. He choked back a groan as Gene worked him up, took him in his palm, and Sam couldn't stop himself from clenching Gene's shoulders. The bruise would be blue for days.

Later, still shaking, Sam slid to his knees. The feel of Gene's fingers in his hair shouldn't've meant shit. And anyway, it was the wolfish glint in Gene's eyes that really got him, glimpsed in flashes before Gene tilted his head against the wall to reveal nothing but the bob of his Adam's apple as air rushed from his throat.

But afterwards Gene stepped back, taking a final jagged breath. He looked at Sam as though he half-expected him to up and vanish in a puff of smoke, and moments later, did the deed himself with hardly a backward glance as a door clicked shut and Sam was left picking out shadows on the living room walls.

He'd listen for Gene's breath for a while. He wouldn't sleep.

***

"How was it?"

Gene glanced up, meeting Sam's eye for the first time since he rumbled downstairs. There was a toast crumb on his upper lip, and pillow marks battenburged his cheek. "Good."

"Bet you'd say that to haggis on wheat," Sam said.

"I wasn't aware it was suddenly in my job description to stroke your ego."

"Uh uh. I've always thought you more of an id man."

"A little early to be sprouting sonnets, Sunshine."

Sam tilted his head.

"Okay. It was the best bloody fry-up I've ever had. And if there's one thing you should know about the world," Gene said, and swished a generous nip of whisky into his tea before all but throwing back the lot, "it's that you can't tell your arse from a hole in the ground if you think it's wise to underestimate yourself."

"Why do I have a sneaking suspicion I'll eventually be charged for these pearls of wisdom?"

"Consider us even."

"So this _is_ all about breakfast, then."

"Ease of access, more like. I keep you round long enough and you'll've no choice but to make a spread every morning."

***

So Sam was getting fucked by his boss. It wasn't the worst arrangement in the history of the world. Still, he couldn't help but feel baffled and not slightly worn thin by Gene's knack for compartmentalization. Gene was the Guv. Also, he was Gene. He was protective and proactive and a great bloody bastard with an inability – no, an _unwillingness_ – to admit that this was anything more than stress relief.

Thing of it being, Sam wasn't always sure himself. Gene had words for what they did, and used them liberally, casually, constantly. Gene was very convincing.

And Gene wasn't queer.

But Sam supposed Gene also allowed himself to find this thing mutually satisfying in the same way that sharing a curry after a long stakeout was mutually satisfying, or exchanging blows down station corridors.

It was light from the darkness. It was getting your liver torn out every morning, only to have it re-grow every night.

It wasn't love. He'd be damned to call it love.

See, Sam was always Sam. He couldn't escape it: the farther he pushed away, the deeper he got. Gene saw this in him, and for fleeting moments he captured the gist of it like wind in a sail. He was also more open-minded than he looked, if hardly limber.

So while Sam was getting fucked by his boss, it occasionally came with this variation: Sam was fucking his boss.

***

"Don't fuck with me, Tyler," Gene grit out, lips almost brushing Sam's ear. It wasn't supposed to look close. It was a posture for schoolyard secrets. But Sam knew the suspect could hear him from the other side of the Lost & Found, let alone from across the table. The hair rose at the back of his neck.

"We're doing this my way. Either sit there or go back to your bloody paperwork."

Sam didn't deign to respond. Rather, he turned to Halstrom. "Tell me what you know about greyhounds."

"Piss-poor pets, they are."

Gene sprang up and grabbed Halstrom by the collar. "Which would account for the kennels found on your property, would it?" Forward, forward, and then Gene's mouth hovered above Halstrom's throat, all teeth. "Give it up, you miserable poof. There were ten rotting bitches in the bramble behind your brother's caravan."

" _Guv_."

When the table tipped over with the brunt of Halstrom's weight, Gene looming ruddy above him, it was all Sam could do to scramble backwards. It didn't take a doctorate to see he'd cracked his head on the edge and was out like a light.

"This part of the bargain?" Sam demanded, gaping down at the suspect, then up at Gene.

Gene snorted. "What'd'ya think? I snap my fingers and he admits to everything."

"Snap your fingers and he'll admit to having started the Fire of London."

Sam strode into the hall, pushing past a WPC, before Gene cornered him.

"This has to stop," said Gene.

"That's the first rational thing you've said all day."

"I'm just getting warmed up." Gene's grip fell on Sam's shoulder, and there it was: that wolfish glint. Sam prickled at the sight.

This didn't go unnoticed to Gene. His lip curled, almost amusedly. But he drove on, "What's with you that you're still working against me at every turn? Something to prove?"

"We've got the wrong man. He's just a pawn. The ring goes farther back."

"So we follow the pawn to his king."

"But the evidence against Halstrom is circumstantial. The property was tenanted—"

Gene planted a swift fist to Sam's side. When Sam swung back at him, Gene veered right and almost had him through the window, arm pinned behind his back and breath clouding the glass with every neat puff of his lungs.

***

Here were the top five times Sam got the wind knocked out of him, in ascending order, with annotations:

Five. The day of the accident. Seems simple, yeah? Waking up thirty-three years in the past is enough to leave anyone panting, and doubly so by being bodily slammed against a file cabinet by a local Neanderthal. (Repudiated.)

But it was the smell of the place that had his hackles rising. The reek of the bombsite, asbestos and grilled dog shit; the street crammed with petrol-hogs. The cigarette haze at the station. Old Spice and sweat. (It grew on him.)

And what the hell did he think would happen? It was like a bloody superconductor connecting his olfactory nerves to his psyche. It yanked him back, right back to the beginning of all things.

Four. Looking back, for an eleven year old kid with classic daddy issues, Sam took the whole, "No, Luke. _I_ am your father," bit pretty well: his sick landed on the rubber part of his Chuck Taylors. (It was the last time he'd eat red licorice at the flicks.)

Three. Sam made it all the way to DI before managing to get shot. It was past two in the morning – not an ideal hour to raid a suspected cocaine way station – but the night was orange with overcast sky, and cold. (The snow would hold off for another two days, only to be a meager offering glimpsed through an eighth-floor hospital ward.)

There was no insider. There was no sting. They were careful.

The bullet tore through his shoulder: it should have been a relief.

Two. 11:52 pm, Friday, June 19, 1987. Or to be less specific, New Order at Glastonbury. There were close to fifty-thousand people at that show, but Christ, Sam might as well have been up on stage with the band for all the bass running through his brain. Thing of it was, he'd almost been ejected for brawling – a little misunderstanding about spilled beer – after Robert Cray got off, but it was nothing a little well-placed poise couldn't solve.

And that bass? The kind which thrummed through his veins and pooled in his belly until he didn't know where the pavement ended and his skin began? Not unlike the sort of transcendent experience Sam absolutely, positively didn't believe in.

One. Q: How long is eternity?

A: Twenty metres, give or take.

(He'd already heaved out all the breath in him before his foot left the roof.)

But that moment right then obviously didn't rank. He was no romantic. It was only this: fourteen stone of DCI pressed against Sam's back, mouth hot on his neck, teeth nipping a neat line between his shoulder blades, and then lower, down Sam's spine, until Gene's tongue flitted against his arse like a poker pulled straight from the hearth. It was only the subtle moisture, the accuracy and intention Gene rarely displayed at the station, in and in, and god, when the air rushed from Sam's lungs, he didn't feel a bit empty.

***

"What's on?"

"Egg whites over rye for you." Sam slipped a plate in front of Gene. "And cottage cheese for me."

"Poofter grub. I might've known you'd write your own epitaph, Tyler."

"Isn't my death you should be worried about, Guv."

Gene apparently took this as a hint and proceeded to rifle through his jacket pockets – the garment having been tossed on the chair back the night before – for cigarettes and a match. After an appreciative drag, he leaned across to Sam's plate and poked at the oversized curds with the blunt end of his fork.

"Try it. I'm sure it'll be fantastic with nicotine."

"What isn't?" Gene sniffed, but scooped up a forkful and proceeded to take a careful bite. It scarcely got past his lips before he spit it back out again.

"Napkin?"

Gene took it, wiped his mouth, and then his tongue. "Keep this up and we'll both starve."

"I'm doing my best with the available resources."

Gene arched a brow.

Sam sighed. "We could go round to the shops later."

"'We' here meaning 'you.'"

"You won't automatically sprout wings the moment you set foot in a market."

"Too true. There was an accident in the meat department the other day. Butcher backed into the grinder and got a little behind in his work. Thing of it is, the Super suspects fowl play."

"Enough, enough," groaned Sam. And then: "I could show you where they sell the spices. D'you know, even beans on toast tastes better for a bit of basil."

"Fuck basil. I'd settle for a pat of butter."

"Fine," said Sam, pettishly. "Why don't we just forget it? I'll go back to my flat and fix myself a grapefruit, and you can stay here and do... whatever it is you do."

"I'm hungry."

"And when did I become your bloody lapdog?"

Gene tipped his ash into a saucer. "Watch it, Tyler."

"What?"

But to Sam's surprise, Gene just laughed, and with a breathy grunt began to munch down his eggs.

Sam bristled. "You know, it doesn't have to be like this. There're plenty of places where it isn't," he said, not really hearing himself. "All it takes is one person to see the problem for what it really is, and then _bam_ , others catch on."

"In Hyde?"

"Yes. In Hyde."

"Oh, to return to that mythical land. Does the sun shine outta your arse every day, or do you have to queue up two weeks in advance for all the competition?"

"Golly, it's good to finally talk to you, Gene."

"And you're a bloody fool if you think you're exempt from the laws of the universe. Lousy martyr, you'd make. Don't you get it? You take a slash, and there's someone watching. You let yourself linger a beat too long, and you're out on your arse," Gene rumbled. He reached across the table for Sam's hand, then yanked it up until Sam was glaring back at him. "Three years ago, I was still putting people away for what we do."

"It isn't wrong. This—"

"Is a fine mess. And it can't ever get away from us."

"Last refuge of a hypocrite."

"Yes? And what does that make you? I'm prepared to accept certain things about myself so long as they bring results. The result here being my truncheon up your jacksie, a fact which seemed to suit you just fine last night."

"Great. While we're feeling generous, why not draw up a prenup?"

Gene looked at him for a long moment. Just looked at him. And then he glanced at Sam's hand, where some moments ago his thumb started making concentric circles across Sam's knuckles. Quietly, he slid back. He crossed the room. He was gone up the stair.

Before Sam had time to swallow down a mouthful of too-warm cottage cheese, he heard the tap running above his head.

***

The rain scarcely let up for a week. Sam spent half of it hunched in the Cortina, starting out the damp windscreen with a pair of binoculars and a kink in his neck. There was no sign of Halstrom, nor his brother, and Gene took every possible opportunity to remind Sam of who'd been the one to let him go.

And yet Gene was a comfortable presence. He let his hand slip down Sam's arm, settling on his thigh. Sam liked the weight of it. The intimate instinct that allowed them to adjust their bodies for cushioning and support.

They didn't talk about the future. There was only the reality of the moment, localized in the space between them, a heady concentration which, once tasted, clouded all other possible outcomes.

***

"Don't be such a ruddy girl. You can handle it for one night, can't you?"

"I want backup."

"Carling and Skelton'll be there."

"Gene, undercover work isn't a game. If we go in for the purpose of surveillance, we have to carry through. Observe. Tread carefully. We do not stick our heads in the ground, carousing and placing bets."

"That's blending in, just like they suggest in your blessed rulebook. And Piper's up three to one. Scrawny thing's the pick of the pack. It'd be a dead giveaway if we didn't put a reverse forecast on 'im."

"Not if it doubles as aiding a known criminal," Sam huffed.

Gene looped a thumb round Sam's belt. "Don't tell me you don't love a chase."

"I want accountability."

"And I wanna count on ten fingers the number of times we've been through this. There's no such thing as invincibility. You're a snail on the fucking motorway, all right? But that doesn't mean you're not still obliged to cross the bloody thing."

Sam sighed as Gene's fingers ghosted across his hip. "Returning to the matter at hand..."

"One night," said Gene.

"One night."

***

The bedroom was incongruous. Full, thick drapes hung over the window: wide roses to match the bed skirt, and below that, shag-piled carpet to match the roses. But the drapes were heavy with dust, and the carpet was matted with cigarette burns and spilled coffee.

Sam had developed a method for walking on it without walking on it.

He also learned to not look too closely at his surroundings as he waited for Gene to return with their drinks. Like artefacts from a past civilization, knickknacks stared out from the shadows. Keepsakes from a holiday in Blackpool, cheap chintz and ashtrays. Porcelain figurines, and the telltale Roger Whittaker LP beside the turntable. All the riches of Eldorado wouldn’t have been so damning.

Sam asked about them once, when he was feeling sated and lazy and unreserved; wondered why Gene kept it all out. Gene shrugged and said he'd run out of boxes. But the next night, the shelves were bare.

So while Sam waited for Gene to bring their drinks, he thumbed through the remainder of Gene's LPs. Lonnie Donegan took top billing, with the occasional Perry Como wedged in-between, and finally, a well-worn Shirley Collins. Or at least the sleeve was Shirley Collins. An equally well-worn copy of _Electric Warrior_ sat nestled within, like a cuckoo in a warbler's nest.

***

"No one said it'd be easy."

Sam looked up from where he'd been picking out shapes in the bar top grain. "Sorry?"

Gene shook his head. "So it's all worse than you'd ever reckon. Scum multiplying every night. Streets getting worse. Hardly a thing to do to pick up the slack," he said. And then: "You get used to it. Get used to trying, waiting for the world to change."

"'S not like that. Have to be one of the frontrunners. I said that."

"And when you've beat everyone to the finish line?"

"You go back to the start." Sam sipped his bitter. So the surveillance had been a bust, and he was fifty quid poorer for his trouble. Wouldn't be long before it crawled under his skin, every squelched whisper of progress coiling round his guts until the lack thereof had him folding in on himself. He'd be lying if he said it didn't hurt.

"What's there to see?"

"How it might've been," said Sam, "when everything was still malleable."

Gene dabbed at the condensation on his glass. "I don't understand."

"You will."

"And if I don't want to?"

"You will."

***

And it was this: a thing apart. Not a trifle to be kept and admired like a wasp under glass. Not something to be savored, but rather something to be gulped greedily down heaving lungs until he was shaking with it, bristling like his life depended on it, like it was the only thing that mattered.

He'd be damned to call it anything at all.


End file.
